Start Up Issue; Gray Screen with ? on folder

I am new to a Mac Pro also and I purchased a used Mac Pro (fully loaded) from a 3rd party. It works great, but when I power it up in the Gray screen mode, it seems to take a while and occasionally I receive a ? mark with a folder symbol blinking. I turn the computer off and it usually boots up fine. Occasionally I have to do this process twice.

Is this something I need to worry about? What should I do to fix. I have build Windows machines and am fairly knowledgeably, but new to the Mac environment.

Thanks,

Earl

Open up System Preferences, Startup Disk, click on the main boot drive and click Reboot. It sounds like it's looking for some other drive that was once used to boot the system.

Welcome to Mac-Forums, EarlsMac.

The question mark at startup means the system has a hard time finding a viable OS to boot from.

Doh! dtravis beat me to it... I'll get you for this one day, pardner!






LOL Kiddin'

dtravis, the fastest keyboard in the East/West/world.

If that doesn't work, try a PRAM reset. I've seen this delay occur after removing a Bootcamp partition. You can reset the PRAM by pressing and holding Command-Option-P-R immediately after powering the system on. Wait for the system chime to occur three times before releasing.

MHC

Agreed with CWA. Try them both. One should solve it. My Intel Mini did that when I took out the bootcamp partition. In my case just the startup disk solved it. Seen the PRAM do it also.

NOTE: Not a Hardware issue. Moved to Software OS forum.

Thanks for the help. I will give both a try

Earl